Truman was Vice President under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and was thrust into the presidency following Roosevelt's death. Truman did not garner the same support as the deceased president. Democrats had controlled Congress since 1933, for 14 years, and Roosevelt had been elected to a record four terms in office. In the 1946 election, the election resulted in a Republican picked up 55 seats and won a majority. Joseph William Martin, Jr., Republican of Massachusetts, became Speaker of the House, exchanging places with Sam Rayburn, Democrat of Texas, who became the new Minority Leader. The Democratic defeat was the largest since they were trounced in the 1928 pro-Republican wave that brought Herbert Hoover to power.

The vote was largely seen as a referendum on Truman, whose approval rating had sunk to 32 percent[2] over the president's controversial handling of a wave of post-war labor strikes, including a United Auto Workers strike against Ford and General Motors in 1945, a United Mine Workers strike starting in April 1946, and a national railroad worker strike that began in May. Further, the back-and-forth over whether to end unpopular wartime price controls to handle shortages, particularly in meat and other foodstuffs. While Truman's early months in the White House had been plagued with questions of "What would Roosevelt do if he were alive?" Republicans now began to joke "What would Truman do if he were alive?" and "To err is Truman."[3]